Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Apr 20th 2020

A month ago, with the world economy just beginning its lockdown, I presented a modest proposal which seemed impossibly far-fetched to the point of madness. Four days later, the British government announced almost exactly those policies. This week a different crisis is looming: an intensified rerun of the 2012 euro crisis. So here is another modest proposal.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Apr 20th 2020

As the US and Europe prepare to enter their second month of lockdown, the good news is that social controls, where they are imposed, are working. The less good news is that the exit from lockdowns is going to be long and arduous. It is likely that in most major Western nations, economic activity will remain at levels significantly below normal until well into the fall.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand, Vincent Tsui

Apr 17th 2020

China just unveiled a -6.8% year-on-year fall in 1Q20 output and the ricochet effect is being felt beyond its borders. Neighboring economies face shrunken demand and are being forced to ditch fiscal rectitude and other economic orthodoxies. In some cases, monetary responses look a lot like quantitative easing. These emerging economies’ capacity for such action varies greatly.

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Apr 16th 2020

Eurozone finance ministers attempted to put a positive spin on the no strings €500bn Covid-19 relief package they agreed last week. But everyone is unhappy with the deal. With Italy’s debt to GDP ratio set to soar, Rome is calling for the mutualization of debt among eurozone economies; something Berlin and the Hague have ruled out.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Tom Miller

Apr 16th 2020

China’s deep economic roots in Africa provoke alarm in the US and concern among debtor nations, especially as some costly infrastructure projects prove financially unviable. But our latest in-depth DeepChina report explains why China’s presence is generally welcome in East Africa, even as the era of huge loans and megaprojects draws to an end.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Apr 15th 2020

In the global crises of 1998 and 2008, China chose currency stability over competitive devaluation—and in the coronavirus crisis of 2020 it is making the same choice. In this piece, Wei argues that preventing capital outflows outweighs the PBOC’s other priorities for now, even if this means having to accept a less competitive currency.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Apr 15th 2020

There is a strange contradiction in most developed economic systems as they have been driven by freely assembling entrepreneurs who operate on the basis of money, which is the ultimate tool of state coercion. Charles is worried that the private, risk-taking element of our economies may be fully extinguished by responses to the Covid-19 crisis.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Apr 14th 2020

Following the 2008 crisis, the S&P 500 bottomed on March 9 2009. Since then, an investor in physical gold would have gained 82.2% while an investor in 10-year US treasuries would have made gains of 65.6% (with coupons re-invested). But with both assets testing their pre-crisis highs, there are several reasons to believe that gold is now set to outperform structurally.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Apr 09th 2020

We are in uncharted policy territory. Never before have we seen the kind of GDP contractions now being projected for most OECD countries, and never before have investors had to deal with such extremes of uncertainty. Against this backdrop, Louis attempts to answer 10 of the most burning questions posed by clients about the shape of the post-Covid-19 world.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer

Apr 09th 2020

Central banks across the developed world are cranking up their printing presses to buy huge amounts of public debt that is being issued to support companies and individuals. The worry is that this causes high inflation down the track, or that it means the fiscal and monetary management functions of governmens are merging. The way I approach this issue is through two simple questions.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Apr 08th 2020

Globally distributed production has already become less attractive since the 2008 crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic will intensify the trend for global manufacturing to reduce its dependence on China. Dan argues this will encourage supply chains to become more robust, more decentralized and, ironically, more truly global.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Apr 07th 2020

While the People’s Bank of China remains more conservative than other global central banks, it is now clearly signaling to the market that liquidity will remain loose for the foreseeable future. This means low interest rates and, according to Wei, favorable conditions for a Chinese government bond rally.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Apr 07th 2020

When everything is falling apart around you, the urge to do something—anything—becomes irresistible. A good solution is to start rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It may not change the bigger picture, but it keeps you busy and does no harm in the longer term. In this spirit, allow me to suggest a little rearrangement that should do no harm, and could even be very profitable.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Apr 06th 2020

For years, investors have been waiting for China’s massive accumulation of debt to lead to a “Minsky moment”. Instead, in the Covid-19 crisis it is Western central banks that are blowing out their balance sheets in a desperate attempt to stabilize financial markets and their economies—while Chinese government bonds have proved “anti-fragile”.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Apr 03rd 2020

These are hard times for the global system as big economies are effectively shuttered and risk appetite craters. The US dollar has surged and many leveraged countries face trouble servicing their debts. As these factors become self-reinforcing, Charles thinks it is worth standing back to assess what is causing what. He does this by explaining the dynamics of an international liquidity crisis and suggests specific investment strategies to handle...

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber, Anatole Kaletsky, Louis Gave, Charles Gave

Apr 03rd 2020

To deal with the economic fallout from unprecedented lockdown measures aimed at halting the spread of Covid-19, governments and central banks in the US and Europe are pulling out all the stops to pop up financial systems and avoid economic collapse. Anatole Kaletsky and Charles Gave joined Louis Gave to discuss the long term consequences.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Apr 02nd 2020

The US economy can be assumed to already be in recession, yet KX is relatively confident in its ability to generate a V-shaped recovery once lockdowns are materially eased.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Apr 02nd 2020

As usual in a market crash, there has been a lot of chatter over the last 10 days about whether the stock market has already formed a bottom, and if now is the time to get back in and pick up some “bargains at special prices”. Clearly what is needed is a decision rule to tell us whether the conditions are favorable yet or not. Happily, some of the research we have recently been doing at Gavekal Intelligence Software allows me to create just such...

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Apr 01st 2020

“Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted in those crises,” wrote European Union “father” Jean Monnet in his 1976 memoirs. Today Europe is once again facing a crisis. And once again the solution adopted by Europe’s fractious leaders is likely to be a short term fudge that defers hard decision-making to another day.

Gavekal Research

Thomas Gatley

Mar 31st 2020

Chinese equities are likely to outperform in the short term as the global outbreak worsens and China adds more detail to its latest set of stimulus measures announced on Friday. However, once the outbreak shows signs of peaking in the US and Europe, Thomas argues that China is expected to return to its status as a relative underperformer.

Gavekal Research

Yanmei Xie, Will Denyer, Tan Kai Xian

Mar 30th 2020

Will the US$2trn fiscal packiage prove big enough? The initial market reaction might have suggested that it won’t. However, if extreme lockdowns last no longer than a month or two, the fiscal package may well succeed in its twin objectives of averting mass business failures and preventing a big rise in long term unemployment.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Mar 27th 2020

In economics there is what you see and what you don’t see, and “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” As the world economy suffers a spasm the likes of which has rarely been seen in peacetime, it may help to go back to first principles to figure out what we are not seeing about this crisis, and who is going to end up paying for it.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Mar 26th 2020

Is the cure worse than the disease? This question is already being asked about the economic lockdowns being imposed in response to Covid-19. It will be asked a lot more in the coming weeks as the economic pain gets worse. The short answer is that the cure is costly, but needed; and well-designed policies can enable a transition to a much lower-cost approach by mid-May if not earlier.

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Mar 25th 2020

Along with other second-tier currencies the British pound fell steeply between early and mid-March as investors dashed to get their hands on US dollar cash. That US dollar liquidity squeeze has now eased, and sterling has found a near-term bottom. But the outlook for the British currency remains clouded amid the UK’s coronavirus lockdown.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Mar 25th 2020

As other economies shut down to contain their outbreaks, China’s hopes of a V-shaped growth rebound are evaporating. Thomas explains how the ensuing collapse in Chinese exports could result in a 4-8pp drop in GDP growth for Q2, offsetting any domestic recovery and pressuring policymakers to ramp up economic assistance.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 24th 2020

As investors survey the shattered remnants of the past decade’s bull market, they can reasonably assume that the winners of the future will not be those who dominated in the last decade. Louis applies the Gavekal Four Quadrants framework to address the question of which asset class will emerge victorious in a new macro environment.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Mar 23rd 2020

As national lockdowns upend normal economic activity, conventional economic indicators are being rendered useless to investors. High frequency indicators may be helpful in spotting future turning points and gauging the strength of any eventual recovery. In this short chartbook, KX suggests a range of indicators for monitoring the US economy.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Mar 23rd 2020

The economic stress of the Covid-19 outbreak is all but certain to cause a rise in nonperforming loans. Even before the outbreak, China’s rural commercial banks—its smallest and most troubled lenders—were already short of capital and performing poorly. As Xiaoxi shows in this piece, another jump in bad loans will push more of them into distress.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 20th 2020

While most media attention is focused on the Covid-19 outbreak, the energy industry simultaneously faces a solvency crisis and a liquidity seizure of epic proportions is unfolding before us. In short, these events have created a perfect storm. What comes next depends on how this three factors driving markets play out

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Mar 20th 2020

Above all, economics is the study of why goods and services have value and why these values are constantly changing. This study is greatly complicated by the fact that there are two different sources of value. In Gavekal-speak, we call these “scarcity” value (think jewels) and “efficiency” value (think tools). So the key question becomes not only “why do things have value?” but also “why do the relative values of scarcity and efficiency change...

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Mar 19th 2020

The US and Europe are moving towards Hubei-style societal lockdowns. Arthur sifts through the latest epidemiological research, and concludes that while the worst case public health scenarios will be avoided, the coming lockdowns will be severe and last long enough to have an economic impact possibly more damaging than in China.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Mar 18th 2020

The People’s Bank of China has failed to join other central banks in the recent wave of rate cuts. But with the coronavirus now threatening a substantial hit to global demand, the PBOC is going to need to do more. In this piece, Wei argues that a cut in the benchmark deposit rate—a tool that has not been used in four years—is on the way soon.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Mar 18th 2020

“This is not a time for ideology or orthodoxy,” said UK chancellor Rishi Sunak on Tuesday. Policymakers across Europe and in the US agree. They have now thrown orthodoxy out of the window in an all-out attempt to support economies hammered by Covid-19 countermeasures. In the US, the administration announced fiscal support worth as much as US$1.2trn, or 6% of GDP, complete with the immediate mail-out of a US$1,000 check to each and every member...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley, Andrew Batson

Mar 17th 2020

Given the extent of China’s coronavirus lockdown, it’s not surprising to see double-digit declines in economic indicators. The real surprise is that the statistics bureau did not fudge the data, as analysts expected it would, and printed numbers bad enough to be plausible. This suggests authorities will be pragmatic about the growth impact for 2020.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Mar 16th 2020

As China gets back to work, the biggest problem facing the economy is no longer restrictions imposed on the supply side, but the near-certain prospect of a major shock in global demand. Andrew argues that this shift will cajole Chinese policymakers, who have so far kept a conservative approach, into stepping up their growth support measures.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer

Mar 16th 2020

While other US government agencies tackle the coronavirus crisis, the Federal Reserve has promised ample liquidity and functioning credit markets. Its “whatever it takes” plan is to ensure that US dollars are available at home and abroad, US credit markets remain liquid and solvent companies and individuals are not stopped out.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Mar 13th 2020

Financial markets are now in full-blown panic mode. For investors, the key question is: What will it take for markets to form a bottom, and when will this happen? No one can answer with any precision. However, it is possible to discern the broad conditions needed to allow the markets to find a bottom. We are nowhere near them yet.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Mar 12th 2020

The breakup of the Opec+ oil cartel and the ensuing price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia triggered a -30% fall in the price of oil and spooked financial markets. Moscow has upended the monopolistic pricing regime that has supported the price of oil over the last three years. Tom Holland examines the consequences of the oil market’s regime change.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Mar 12th 2020

China’s consumer-price inflation is now around an eight-year high, driven primarily by continued pork shortages due to the African swine fever and exacerbated by the Covid-19 lockdown measures. That said, headline inflation figures are ticking down, a trend Ernan expects to continue in the coming months with an assist from lower oil prices.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Mar 10th 2020

Plans enacted by US national security hawks to toughen sanctions on Huawei and other Chinese tech firms have run into stiff resistance from both American tech firms and President Trump himself. Dan reports that, amidst this stalemate, both factions are mobilizing for a protracted fight over the fate of restrictions on exports to China.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 10th 2020

Amid the Covid-19 outbreak and the Saudi-Russia oil price war, markets are essentially priced for a scenario in which the US government does little in response, leaving the policy reaction to the Federal Reserve. While this may be the most plausible scenario, other possible US government actions, at home and abroad, have different implications for markets.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 09th 2020

The freakout in markets spurred by the coronavirus outbreak has seen US treasuries deliver one of their strongest two-week performances in the post-Cold War era. Louis argues that these moves leave investors with a stark choice to make: either we are seeing a “blow-off top”, or alternatively the world is facing an impending economic ice age.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Lance Noble

Mar 06th 2020

China’s government is rethinking its approach to biosecurity in order to reduce the odds of future outbreaks of infectious disease. In this piece, Lance explains what treating biosecurity as a part of national security will mean for regulation, public health and the biotechnology sector.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave, Andrew Batson, Cedric Gemehl

Mar 06th 2020

In Thursday’s conference call, Louis-Vincent Gave, Andrew Batson and Cedric Gemehl discussed the policy and market reactions to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Gavekal Research

Thomas Gatley

Mar 05th 2020

Although China is ground zero for the coronavirus outbreak, its onshore stock markets are the world’s best performing major markets so far this year by a considerable margin. For the most part this is due to mood-enhancing domestic policy support, which is likely to continue to counteract the catastrophic near term earnings outlook.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 04th 2020

The bull market of the last few years has been built on the twin assumptions that globalization will continue, and that interest rates will remain low for years to come. These convictions have propelled an exponential wave of optimization. As the coronavirus calls key assumptions into question, the worry is that the giant bubble which sits at the heart of the system may be about to burst.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Mar 03rd 2020

As the rise in new cases of Covid-19 in China has slowed, provinces are easing their drastic restrictions on movement and businesses are reopening. But the extended shutdown has already imposed great costs on migrant workers. Ernan estimates lost wages will be 3-4% of annual household income, though with a smaller impact on total consumption.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Mar 03rd 2020

When the market falls -10% in a week, and then rallies 5% in a day, investors face a question: Do I buy the dip, or sell the rally? An investor selling the rally would in essence be making a bet that the negative impact of the coronavirus will outweigh the central bank support and G7 finance ministry action that has been promised.

Gavekal Research

Research Team

Mar 02nd 2020

In the last week of February, global investors woke up to the massive effect of China’s coronavirus lockdown and the risks of a global pandemic. The resulting disruption to global supply chains will be widespread and long lasting. But not all is bleak. The Fed has promised to support the US economy, and many emerging markets have room both for expansionary fiscal policies and interest rate cuts.